


I would like a black and white world like Pleasantville

by Nidarian



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Angst, Implied Sexual Content, Jealousy, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Paternal Instinct, Unhappy Ending, Unrequited Love, and im sorry for it, maybe ill turn this into a series, this is fckn sad, this is not cute, this is not nice, who knows - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:20:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28407627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nidarian/pseuds/Nidarian
Summary: "Reflected in your eyes I look beautiful too
Relationships: Antonio Giovinazzi & Kimi Räikkönen, Charles Leclerc/Kimi Räikkönen
Kudos: 5





	1. Where I can't see the colors and I can turn them on

**Author's Note:**

> these fandoms just needs more of these two :')

He had been watching him for some time now. Maybe too much. He thought he had hidden it well, he hadn't been too conspicuous in doing so. After all, he was one who observed everything in everyone, he was an observer. But when it came to him, even the most naïve person could have guessed that something in his gaze, in his already mysterious and enigmatic attitude was changing.

He saw him laughing with his current and his former teammate, the only two men who had been able to melt his frozen heart. Watching him go from becoming cold, aloof and silent to smiling, outgoing and talkative in a single moment and only as he spoke to them caused an indefinite feeling in his stomach even in himself, who felt lack of physical faculties when he saw him smile but especially when he noticed him being so open to someone other than him.

Not that he had any right to be jealous of it, and maybe that was also why his body responded so sour and bitter, because deep inside he knew he would never be remotely close to who Antonio and Seb were for him. This is why he had also come to not tolerate them when he noticed them next to him or when they could make him laugh with extreme ease. He had a history with Seb: they had spent two years in the same team with many ups and downs. In spite of everything, however, they respected each other, supported each other, and if we want to unbalance ourselves we can say that they loved each other.

But it didn't work like that with Antonio. Antonio was nobody to him, just a too noisy and, above all, anonymous boy. Only towards him he feel like yelling at him that he was in Ferrari while Antonio was nobody. Italy loved _him_ , not Antonio. An acidity and a poison that were not part of his nature but that were certainly fueled by the jealousy he felt towards him as soon as the topic Kimi opened up. He did not dare admit to himself that he was jealous, he was too proud to do so, but he was also too proud to acquire the knowledge that in reality Antonio had the right and a thousand more connotations to feel superior to Charles when it came to Kimi. What made the Monegasque damned even more was that even the veteran would have said it without problems and without hesitation in front of the two.

He kept replicating this image in an almost schizophrenic way in his head, of Kimi pointing and choosing Antonio without insecurity as soon as he is asked who he prefers between the two and repeating what Charles actually is and will never be anyone for him. A stupid, childish, adolescent film, which one would never expect from a boy of Charles's psychic and character range, yet his mind was so clouded and wounded by this idea that he now repeated it in a loop without shame, sometimes almost unconsciously, isolating himself from the surrounding reality.

A hidden, dark and malignant part of his subconscious, on the other hand, occasionally took out those moments he lived in Sauber, the only ones in which Kimi probably showed that he knew about the existence of the boy.

And when that happened it was even worse.

It was as if Charles' psyche had to remind him that even after those harmless and almost tender moments they shared Kimi still didn't consider him, he didn't care about him. Or perhaps he relived them to give a minimum of bitter consolation to Charles who, years later, still interpreted those gestures and considerations that Kimi had towards him as a mere illusion of an awakening of his paternal instinct in seeing him so small, lost and above all scared after being catapulted into the world of Formula 1.

Charles had grown up since then, had matured, but to this day he could not explain how it was possible that he found more comfort in that warrior dressed in red than in the team with which he spent his first year as a rookie. Over the years he realized that even then that man so apparently grumpy and terrifying would become something more, and this made him mad: "why didn't he do it again?" "Just because I'm older now?" "Is it because I took his place?" These were the questions that roamed the most in the 22-year-old's head that often led him to clench his fists so hard that he buried his nails in the flesh in a psychophysical and pathological need to feel noticed by that man who was more than twice his age. He imagined as he yelled these questions directly in front of him, in his face, and the emotions that were being transmitted to him were so strong that he felt his heartbeat speed up drastically. Crazy, if you think about it: he drove cars at 300 km / h with a seraphic calm and he couldn't control his emotions just by imagining another of his umpteenth movies in which he freed his chest from everything he always felt for Kimi in a youthful instinct screaming "notice me. Tell me I'm important."

Even Kimi himself had changed: after joining Alfa Romeo he was like a reborn person, unrecognizable I would dare to say. Smiling, joking, bold, but always on his own with regard to relations between colleagues. "Antonio and Sebastian are the only friends I have among the drivers. Apart from them, I have no other in the circus," he revealed in one of the many interviews, and that was probably the coup de grace for Charles.

He probably expected it, or at least he should have expected it, but it was still destructive in many ways to hear it from himself: firstly because he initially felt an almost exaggerated pain for the Finn, limited in relations between colleagues due to his natural character, shy and closed. Secondly he felt a living anger seethe inside of him because he was unable to conceive as no one noticed how amazing and fantastic he was as a person and also one of the most empathic human beings he had ever met. He talked a lot about him even to his colleagues with whom he was most familiar with a light and admiration so evident in his eyes that it was impossible to think that there was nothing else.

And beyond that, well... beyond that he was heartbroken, devastated to realize that he wasn't among these privileged to be able to say that they were someone to Kimi, that they were able to leave a piece of them inside his cold spirit and to warm him.

He could have talked to someone about it, he could have confessed to try to lighten his head a little that was crushing him from the exhaustion he was coming to, but the truth was he didn't really have someone to do it with. Sebastian? It was out of the question, despite being the first that came to mind. He and Charles were too friends in some ways and they weren't enough for others to say such a thing to him, he would stop shortly after. Also Seb and Kimi had known each other for too long and had such a strong but subtle bond that Charles would never forgive himself for ruining it, he had never been selfish, it was not in his nature. Carlos? His teammate, of course, would be an intuitive choice. But the two had not connected at all since the beginning of the season, too little time had passed, and this thing for Charles had been going on for well over a few weeks, he would not have been able to summarize those three years in words even in three seasons. Not because he disliked Carlos or anything, he probably would never tell anyone anyway.

So he had started living with the mindset and the knowledge that he would be consumed by this fact, and the thing that saddened him most was that soon he would have to say goodbye to Kimi forever, since from one day to the next he could have announced his imminent retirement, and at the very thought of having to wave him goodbye like any other driver on the grid and then see him vanish from there until the end of his life with this thing that he carried inside from the first moment he put his gaze on him plunged him into a horrifying abyss of sadness and numbness. He knew he was the only one to feel such strong things towards him, he knew he was the only one who would give him everything to feel loved, even to feel just noticed.

The more the days passed, the more he thought about this thing, the more his friends and colleagues pointed out to him how bad he looked and how gloomy he was until he finally decided to use his only remaining strengths to do an action as simple as destructive: ignore him.

He no longer rested his gaze on him during the conferences studying every slightest change that his perfectly structured and matured face made as he spoke, nor did he dare to get lost in that infinite sea that were his eyes and thinking about how much no one else more beautiful and perfect than him existed on the planet.

He had stopped watching him joke and talk with Antonio during the entire duration of the briefings, thinking how his smile was able to illuminate this world with so much ease and spontaneity.

All this while waiting for the fateful day of the announcement of Kimi's final farewell, of his perennial retirement from Formula 1. Every day he got out of bed and opened the latest news from the world of Motorsport to see if there were any news, as he did it at intervals of hours during the day.

In fact he had not solved anything: Kimi was always and in any case his fixed thought, that little voice in his head that did not let him go and abandoned him to imaginary scenarios of absolute impious and desecrating nature when Charles felt particularly gloomy and frustrated.

He was about to come to his final collapse, then something happened. Ah, if only Charles had known in advance, it would have fared differently.

But let's go in order.

⁂

In one of the many moments of tension that had been created between Charles and Antonio during the race in Belgium, one of them resulted in the explosion of the spark that had already sparkled for some time: the fault of the maneuver fell mainly on Antonio, but the language and gestures to which Charles let go during and after the race were nothing short of unforgivable.

No matter how critical Charles' psychological situation was and how much the hatred he felt towards Antonio had reached an almost worrying level, he should not have allowed himself to twist a hair on a colleague who risked his life in the same way as he did on track: he closed his doors, gave him the middle, pushed him off the track as soon as he had the opportunity and all the most incorrect maneuvers that could come to your mind.

That wasn't Charles, it was obvious. In addition to becoming unrecognizable and dangerous on the track, he also proved it outside of it, without shame.

As soon as the race was over it seemed to be all normal except for a more than correct 10 second penalty to Charles for dangerous driving and two points removed from his driving license, as well as various warnings and therefore measures that the team gave him, but still everyone thought that that would have been enough to make him lower his crest and make him go home with his head down.

They were wrong.

Antonio was not looking for trouble, he was neither ready nor eager to quarrel and to confront animatedly with his colleagues. But his teammate, less tolerant of these inconceivable and very serious actions for him, wrinkled his nose reviewing the videos of the Ferrari driver's actions on the Italian, but respected his choice to not to discuss it, after all he did not have nothing to do about it, although Kimi knew and understood that the Monegasque did not have much sympathy towards his friend and colleague unlike Antonio himself. Kimi was not born yesterday, he was anything but stupid, he had also noticed that Charles showed these attitudes when he saw Antonio near him and when they talked together. He had noticed the looks that Charles gave him as soon as Kimi revealed the actual confidence he had with Antonio.

Precisely for this reason he had remained calm, but he would have intervened in defense of his friend if that insolent boy had thought even for a moment that he could inveigh against his colleague.

That was exactly what happened, because at the end of the race Charles was the first after the two Alfa Romeo drivers to head threateningly towards the same garage, still with his helmet and Balaclava in hand. He wouldn't let Antonio get away with it, not this time when he thought he had the right and the opportunity to attack and humiliate him. He was wrong. A lot.

"Antonio!" Charles almost called him to intercourse as if he were a dog.

The Italian was in his box and was putting the balaclava back in the helmet leaning against the desk and he was ready to go to the interview area, but as soon as the 22-year-old caught his attention inside he thought "again? But haven't you had enough?"

In the time when Antonio approached Charles, who was just outside the garage, the latter took the opportunity to see if Kimi was in the garage, however he was not there. Charles wrinkled his nose.

"What's up?" Antonio asked quietly, perhaps too quietly, and it was this that further altered Charles, already warmed up by his own.

" _Cosa c'è?! Mi vieni addosso e mi chiedi anche cosa c'è?_ " The Monegasque did not limit himself to formalities, shouting at the 27-year-old, who was staring at him with a look mixed between shocked and stunned. It would have been understandable if it had been Antonio who was so upset. He had every right, and yet he had given up, he thought that all the after that they had reserved for the youngest was enough for him. Evidently this was not the case, and Charles was becoming more and more unforgivable. It was precisely for this reason that Antonio found himself in difficulty in responding to that blatantly far-fetched accusation, without any sense and without any right to exist.

" _Non è stato volontario Charles, è stato un incidente di gara, un errore mio. Mi dispiace._ " Antonio put his hands on and continued with his calm tone, which instead of reassuring Charles did nothing but alter him even more. Every word that came out of the Alfa Romeo driver's mouth with his perfect and immaculate Italian was making him less and less rational and reasonable.

" _Non ne faccio un cazzo delle tue scuse!_ " On the contrary, the imperfection and pronounced accent of Charles's Italian was emerging, tainted by the lucidity that he progressively lost as he raised his voice.

Antonio was more and more stunned, he was getting smaller and smaller under the uncontrolled and irrational screams of an unrecognizable Charles. He did not understand what he had done wrong, what fault he had, he had not done anything irremediable, and more to apologize he did not know what to do.

The team members who were present in the garage were captivated by those very strong statements of the Monegasque towards their driver. Some understood what he said, the Italians of course, but others who did not understand the language were astonished and furious too, of course. None of them, however, did not intervene, they were afraid of making the situation worse, and nobody wanted to get in trouble because of a nervous and far from mature boy.

That little boy now stood silently in front of Antonio with broad shoulders, a red face and an accelerated breathing, as well as his heart that went like a train. Impossible to understand what he wanted now as he mentally destroyed the driver in front of him, and if it had been for him he would have done it physically as well. Instead he was standing there, staring at him with the hope that his eyes would be enough or to wait for Antonio to respond to attack him and finish him definitively.

"Charles..." Antonio tried to come up with something as that boy's penetrating gaze was becoming unbearable, but as soon as he said his name he turned his head and gaze slightly to the left, breaking eye contact and his sentence.

Charles was ready to attack, he could not tolerate that his gaze was ignored like this, moreover by an insolent pacifist such as Antonio. He made a movement towards him with the clear intention of putting his hands on him, which in fact surprised the poor Italian driver not a little, but he too stopped as soon as he noticed out of the corner of his eye that the men in the box also turned their gaze in the same direction of Antonio. That was the only thing that blocked him from his current intention, so he too focused his attention on who knows what was so interesting to watch.

His blood froze.


	2. Where the color of your eyes can surprise me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charles thinks he can fool him.

Kimi was parked next to the two drivers. He stared at his two colleagues alternately with a raised eyebrow, sinking his gaze deeper into the insolent Monegasque.

"Is there any problem?" Now he was looking right at him, straight in the eyes, ready to destroy him with his seraphic calm as soon as he only dared to do more damage.

Antonio took the opportunity to relax for a moment. He lowered his head and shrugged, almost heaving a sigh of relief. Kimi knew he was not the type to answer to provocations, and for this he sometimes found himself defending him, especially when it came to making Charles bow his head.

The latter, on the contrary, felt the opposite sensation: panic pervaded him everywhere, a malignant heat took his breath away for endless seconds, he felt his heart explode, his lungs burn... but despite everything he managed to maintain eye contact with Kimi for a few seconds, time to realize later that he was practically attached to Antonio and that the two were dangerously snout to snout. Charles took a huge step back and lowered his head too, feeling in awe of even Kimi's quiet, inaudible breathing.

From how long he was there, how much he had heard of the conversation he had had with Antonio, Charles wondered, mostly noticing how much Kimi was too relaxed and comfortable in his current posture to have just arrived. But he should have remembered that the Finn was always like that, no matter how tense the situation was.

Antonio now kept his head down but his gaze turned towards Kimi who still didn't seem to stop digging into Charles's spirit waiting for a response from him, who felt more and more oppressed and was ashamed like a dog.

"So?" The eldest of the three continued, showing no signs of upset or nervousness, he was only genuinely curious to see how Charles would have taken the situation, if he had the courage to get the balls out in any situation and not just with the most vulnerable.

"I was talking about the accident situation with Antonio." It took him some time to start talking and thinking in English again, his accent was again marked, a sign that he was not yet fully lucid.

The Italian now shifted his gaze to Charles observing his changes in expression but always keeping his head down so as not to be arrogant and boastful now that he had Kimi by his side.

"Were you talking?" A little laugh escaped him. "You didn't seem so inclined to speak in a civilized and quiet way." Still quiet, probably even more than before. Charles was about to explode.

That laugh caused a shiver down his spine: he didn't expect it, much less it arrived harmless on his skin, so much so that he had to hold his breath for a moment, hoping with all his being that Kimi hadn't noticed.

Unlikely. Kimi was a skilled observer, impeccable, nothing escaped his mature eyes and trained to capture every detail of anything in an almost predatory way. Even when it seemed he didn't notice the small details like this, he actually stored them inside him and kept them silently in his memory.

"I got nervous, I didn't mean to attack him like that." Charles was physically forcing himself to keep his breathing steady and not to burst, and this was also made worse by the fact that he was now looking Kimi in the eyes.

The Finn's gaze seemed lost, absent from that of the much younger driver. In reality inside him he was as lucid and alert as a predator, and an imperceptible smile formed on the ends of his thin lips, satisfied that Charles had found the balls to look him in the eye. The dialogue without eye contact was the thing that the forty-one year old tolerated least, he needed to look his interlocutors in the eyes with his head and shoulders high, probably those years in the military service had accentuated even more his authoritarian and superiority nature. He knew Charles wasn't a rabbit, and he proved it now by finding the strength to make eye contact.

"Well, I'm glad. Next time think a little more before reducing yourself to what you did today, hm?" There seemed to be no ulterior motive in that question that seemed more a polite request towards the Monegasque, but the latter, who felt like his senses expanded and every word that came out of Kimi's mouth sharp and stinging on his skin, received it more like an imposition, an order to be followed from now until the end of his days.

Charles nodded imperceptibly, he thought he had managed to hide well the fake repentance he felt towards this situation. He was anything but repentant, he would do it again and again, always with more violence and aggression. He thought, because Kimi didn't fall for it. Oh, nothing could be hidden from that man: he seemed ignorant and basic like many of his peers, but he had seen and lived so much that he now knew perfectly well how the world worked. He said nothing about it either, but like everything else he filed it and jealously guarded it.

The two Alfa Romeo drivers were waiting for nothing but the young red driver to leave and return to his garage, and so he did, but not before shooting one last, poisonous arrow at Antonio, who was still more relaxed with the head down.

" _Ti odio, stronzo._ " In Italian, so that he was sure that Kimi didn't understand it immediately. In all the years he spent with Ferrari he had never learned the language, he had a cultural refusal. Not that he hated Italy itself, on the contrary, but he did not tolerate the prototype of the typical inhabitant and the language itself, despite the countless moments he spent in two teams originating from that nation. From the tone and expression that Charles used and from the visual response that came from Antonio immediately afterwards, however, he guessed that it was not something loving, far from it.

Charles only now felt compelled to move away from the Alfa Romeo garage to return to that of the prancing horse, and consequently the men in the post of the native Milan team began to take up their duties and jobs again.

"What did he tell you?" Kimi asked, now concentrating his entire attention on a dazed and visibly tired Antonio, who scrutinized him with a torn look, undecided whether to really translate what Charles had just addressed to him, wondering how the Finn could have reacted this time.

⁂

The Monegasque was in his garage room turning over on the sofa and repressing the constant temptation to scream into the pillow to try to alleviate even slightly the feeling of overwhelm he was feeling. That had been the coup de grace, it had all become too unbearable for him, the post-race interviews he had had to do had anything but helped him relax. He hated Kimi, with a primordial and almost nucleic hatred, feeder. The more he tried to break away and forget him, the more he seemed almost to perceive it to make the young man further damned. He had the image of his immense blue eyes digging into his soul fixed in his head that was devastating him more than anything else, still not conceiving how two such limited elements could contain such a sea of emotions. He had taken a shower, he had injured his hand with the shards of a glass that he squeezed so tightly in his grip that he broke it into a thousand pieces, yet he could not feel the least satisfied with anything, nothing at all.

His phone suddenly vibrated, signaling the arrival of a message. The only distraction available to him at the moment, so he turned it on, and he almost forgot how to breathe for an infinite moment.

_> Leclerc._

Kimi. Who else.

He did not even have time to realize if what he was reading was true or a simple fruit of the delirium in which he was immersed that the mobile phone in his hand vibrated again, making him also noticeably jump so he was astonished staring at the screen.

_> Come to my motorhome._

Charles could feel the same coolness and authority with which he was used to hearing him speak even through the message, which penetrated his bowels to the bone.

He was in chains, he had no idea what to do as he saw the cell phone screen go black to reflect his pale paralyzed face. He could have ignored the messages and then justified himself by saying he hadn't picked up the phone for the rest of the day. No, he didn't have the will to do it. By now the damage was done, by now he had read the messages, and his mind already began to wander like a ship in the throes of a stormy sea, projecting him already inside Kimi's motorhome to give himself to the most wicked practices while the man older than him kept him tied to the bed and fucked him contemptuously, giving him all the possible hatred he felt for that bastard boy by surrounding his throat in the grip of his cold and stinging hand and-

He shook his head. This was what he wanted, something that would remain alone and only in his imagination. Kimi, on the contrary, certainly had completely different intentions: he wanted to talk face to face alone with the boy without external stimuli that would have easily distracted them, not to do something strictly private or irreverent.

This, however, would never have found out if he had not replied to the messages.

He gathered all his courage and cheek to himself and after having breathed a long sigh he turned on the phone again, opening the chat with the messages.

He read them again, word for word, almost schizophrenic: many people called him by surname, but none of them had the same effect on him that this apparently harmless message had now caused him. He could feel all the intolerance Kimi felt towards him, it burned to the pit of his stomach.

He took another sigh and took advantage of the adrenaline that was flowing in his body to do a madness: fight back.

_> No._

He repented as soon as he sent the message. But who did he think he was? As if that had made him tougher or more of a man. He thought he felt wanted, that he felt desired. At the slightest hint of attention that Kimi gave him he had already pumped himself up and raised his crest.

He stood up and started pacing the short length of his garage room holding the phone in his hands and staring at the still open chat waiting for Kimi to come back online. After all, he had only answered him a few minutes later, it wouldn't be long before that happened.

And indeed it was: it came back online a few seconds after Charles sent the message, and as soon as he noticed it he froze in the middle of the room with his head down on the screen, so much bent that if he had stayed there for too long the next day it would surely hurt him.

He remained impassive even when he saw him write, but this was because the writing appeared for so short a time that he did not have time to metabolize a reaction.

_> Ok._

And he went out of WhatsApp.

Ok? Ok?! With what fucking nerve did he allow himself to give him spades like that!

But of course, he should have expected it. Charles thought he had hit Kimi right, but it was quite the opposite: the Finn did not mince words, found no ulterior motive in words as simple as no or yes. No was no and yes was yes. There wasn't much to discuss.

Charles thought he reacted better, after all he was the one who wrote that message, no ifs and buts. Instead he felt quite different: he wanted to throw the phone, bite the pillow until his teeth hurt and scream so loud that he heard the echo of his voice in his head for the next few days.

Instead he remained motionless, absent, staring at the phone screen that did not give other messaging signals, it was simply turned on on the WhatsApp chat.

Charles came up with something quickly, even if the adrenaline didn't help him to be rational and patient, it made him act more by instinct. The other thousand stimuli that he felt amplified at least twice (such as the beating of his heart, the cold sweat running down his shaking body and a very tight lump in his throat) were another factor that was not helping him to feel comfortable and serene to think properly. He hated himself for this: he couldn't understand how he could race at 300 km / h without problems and without altering himself and now due to a stupid message he had lost control over his entire body and psyche.

Another two or three minutes passed. Charles didn't watch time go by, to tell the truth he had also lost track of the seconds that passed. This was also because in those minutes he hadn't moved an inch from his previous position, he still had his head down and staring at the phone with wide eyes, it could have been hours, he wouldn't have noticed.

_> What do you want._

He felt, he knew he was wrong again. He lifted his head from the phone briefly and looked ahead, his mind wandering. He bit his nails, then looked back at his cell phone. Probably a distraction his brain needed to rest for a moment, not thinking about anything.

It didn't last long, because the recipient on the other side answered almost immediately, as soon as Charles put his eyes on the chat.

_> Talk to you._

Nothing more true, yet Charles became even more upset: he expected a more specific and less vague answer, but on the other hand he was talking to Kimi. He was of few words in person, let alone through a screen. He who most of all needed physical and visual contact to express himself better, he who hated technology so much, hardly used Instagram.

The Monegasque did not reply. He simply blocked the phone and threw it violently on the table, leaning on it shortly after, breathing yet another sigh. Now it was up to him to decide, him alone. He could have let the day go by and talk to him casually and superficially the next day before the race. Yes, it would have been the healthiest option for him, but it would have been neither fair to Kimi nor intrinsic to Charles himself. His body was trying to relax slowly after several sighs that the boy pulled deeply, so he was able to regain some lost lucidity.

No, he couldn't just pretend nothing happened, he wouldn't be able to, not without darkening or being incredibly distracted the days to follow.

No, he had been offered the opportunity to finally get rid of all the demons that were tormenting him, he could not throw it away like that for a simple factor of pride and seeking mere attention.

He braced himself. He shrugged his shoulders, his head, stood erect and told himself to be ready and prepared. He took his phone with him and left the garage, heading towards the motorhome in question at a brisk pace.

As he approached it it was as if he felt an aura of malaise surrounding him more and more, he felt his heart beat faster and faster with each step he took, the adrenaline flowing through his body as if he had injected it the moment before.

As soon as he arrived in front of the motorhome door then, it was even worse: he was nauseous, he felt he had to vomit shortly thereafter, his breastbone hurt so much his heart was about to burst, he had a painful sensation of heat throughout his chest as if it was catching fire from the inside and his saliva had totally dried up. He remained for a few more seconds in front of the closed door of the motorhome to try to calm himself down with big sighs, failing to do so. The earlier this tooth was removed the sooner the pain would pass. Precisely for this reason he decided to knock.

Three faint, timid, weak knocks on the door, so much so that he immediately wondered if anyone inside had heard them.

What if he wasn't? What if he closed the door on him as soon as he saw who he was? What if he got mad at him? And what if-

The door opened. Kimi stared at Charles without expression and then lazily looked at his face. The two were at the same height for the simple fact that the Monegasque was two stairs below as he stared at the 41-year-old in the hope of picking up some kind of reaction from him. Charles had held his breath all the time since the Finn opened the door and presented himself in front of him, and only began to breathe again when the latter, greeting him with a simple nod of his head, invited him to enter.


	3. If I don't catch you then I don't even know how to lose you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charles maybe finally understands what he feels

The young man broke into the motorhome at a very fast pace as soon as Kimi got out of the way to make him sit. Charles stopped in the middle of the room: he was tense, nervous, rigid. He looked around sprightly and frightened as if there was imminent danger lurking, he rubbed his hands as if he had been in a fight with someone a few moments before and kept his shoulders high to impose his defensive position on the man who stood in front of him.

He obviously noticed all this and probably much more, so he decided to make Charles understand that he should have nothing to worry about by breathing a relaxed sigh and leaning against the wall with the same attitude.

"Is everything okay, Charles?" he suddendly asked him in a faint voice and with so few octaves in his voice that the boy felt a shiver down his spine.

Charles was stunned. He put on an incredulous expression as if trying to understand if he had heard the question he had just been asked correctly. Kimi had never cared about him, why did he become so thoughtful at any moment by deluding him?

Charles had to force himself to suppress the sensation of the hot blood in his veins. "What is it, Kimi?" He was not calm, it was evident. It was easier to tell it by the voice than by the posture.

"Is everything okay?" he repeated almost in a chant, in the same tone as before. His gaze was lost in observing the millions of stimuli that invaded the body of the Ferrari driver in front of him.

The latter heaved a shaky sigh. He looked away for a moment, as if to rest the sight and oppression he felt as he looked at Kimi, then returned to rest his eyes on him with that horrible feeling of anger getting stronger and more alive.

"If you're referring to that outburst with Antonio I'm sorry, I was nervous." He satisfied him, almost damning himself immediately after giving in so quickly. It was obvious that it wasn't just that, but it wasn't going to be easy to get it out of his chest.

"Also." Kimi added, almost whispering.

Charles did not understand. Instinctively he frowned in confusion, and then swallowed seriously, without taking his eyes off the man's for a moment.

"You are sick. Other drivers have noticed it too, you are not feeling well. What happens?" He continued noticing the perplexity in Charles's face, which immediately changed into disbelief as soon as Kimi finished saying the sentence.

He couldn't believe it. He thought that someone had forced him to say these things, that the others had noticed what Charles feels towards him and that therefore he would have said it to him. No, it was too absurd, of course, but so was the sudden interest the Alfa Romeo driver was showing towards his colleague. Was it because he had treated Antonio badly? And until then had he not understood anything of all that was roaming around in the Monegasque's head? Impossible. Kimi was attentive to everything, he surely guessed it.

"And what does it matter to you." his voice became more and more serious, more scratched, more angry, as did his gaze. He was shaking, he was building up so much stress that he felt his eyes get wet and his vision blur as a result.

Kimi sighed wearily, he wanted to tell Charles that being so defensive and angry would be useless, he didn't have to prove anything to him, but he avoided so as not to cause the opposite effect.

"You think I can't stand you, is that so?" he fired his arrow with so much nonchalance and laziness that it seemed more than a given.

"And is it true?"

"No." he almost cut him off sharply, only now he seemed to show more vitality and contempt for the boy's arrogance.

Charles laughed with his nose. He felt more and more broken, weaker, more exhausted as the seconds passed. The enormous stress he was experiencing would soon become unbearable, but he had to resist, he had to fight. He wouldn't even give in dead.

"I never would have said that. I thought you hated me directly." he assumed brazenly, almost completely hiding the dismay that oppressed him. He crossed his arms, his neck was stiff and knotted, it hurt just from swallowing.

"It's the other way around, Charles. You never gave me the opportunity to get close." Kimi on the other hand was quiet, calm... but his assumptions seemed more poisonous than anything else.

"You've been pretending I didn't exist since I took your place at Ferrari, Kimi." now he kept his shoulders wide, the adrenaline was giving him the energy to at least remain standing on his legs without collapsing to his knees.

"Work has nothing to do with it, it's your presumption. You have withdrawn and closed in on yourself, and you can't deny it." Kimi was now standing too: he had detached himself from the wall and had his head held high and his back straight, another arrogant statement from Charles and he would have taken a counterattack.

The young man did not accept it. It was not he who had stopped seeking contacts with the man who was twice his age just because he wanted to think only of his future in Ferrari, it was not he who had pushed Sebastian and Antonio away because he was envious of the relationship that the two had instead with the Finn, he hadn't stopped smiling and being serene as soon as he realized that this would probably be Kimi's last season in Formula 1 and that therefore he would have to let him go without ever revealing what he really felt for him.

No, he wasn't the problem.

It wasn't in his head.

Because instead he really was the problem.

Except that he would never admit it, or worse still he would never understand it. His youthful pride would have never opened his eyes. And this is where Kimi would come in, too old and too aware of the world around him to let the young man live in his naivety.

"You'll be leaving at the end of this year, and at that point it won't matter anyway. We might as well stay in this relationship to put the best in a bad situation, we're both very good at it now." Charles still hadn't swallowed the toad that Kimi had created in his throat with his last statement, but he preferred to go on the defensive: by now he didn't care anymore, if he had to strip off his rind this would be the only and last chance that had, so he decided to exploit it.

Kimi noticed the sudden change in his gaze, in his posture, in his attitude: if before the Monegasque tried to show himself in a rigid attacking position, now he had totally relaxed shoulders, head and back. He was looking down, his head turned to the floor, and he wasn't even giving the Finn a look anymore.

He began to think, to connect the pieces; "are you trying to tell me something?" He asked thoughtfully. His tone had softened, empathized.

The younger of the two looked each other in the eyes still with his head down and now also with shining eyes. He looked like a beaten dog. "As I said, it wouldn't matter anyway. From next year we won't be forced to see each other again." He bit his lip. It was evident that he felt broken, especially when he said that last sentence. It was becoming too overwhelming for him.

"Who decided this?" Kimi asked, almost with childish innocence, as if falling from the clouds. He didn't even look like him for those moments when he spoke the question.

Charles was taken aback.

Now he was lost in Kimi's face through the thin veil that had formed over his eyes due to the tears that were starting to pour from them, yet he could see every detail of his physiognomy: it was beautiful. It looked like that of an angel, it seemed to admire a work of art so perfect and immaculate that it could have been ruined if you had looked at it for too long. As he observed those immense blue eyes in which he could still see a remnant of youthful purity and innocence and kept repeating to himself how perhaps he never deserved to have such a perfect and beautiful individual just for him, he thought back to the question posed precisely by Kimi.

Why would he have wanted to see him even after his retirement? At most he would spend time with Antonio and Sebastian. They were the only ones who could think of imagining such a scene, not him. Is it possible that ...

"I don't know, Kimi. I think you're going to want to take the time you lost with your family to follow the job... y-you don't seem like the type to keep dating with the others. Maybe just Antonio and Seb, every so... w-what do I have to do with it?" he looked like a puppy frightened by every sound and object around him. He was afraid to say every word, and even when he did it came out faint and thin, almost a whisper.

He wasn't doing this to soften Kimi, Charles was genuinely intimidated. The older one understood this, but could not explain why.

"It's your paranoia. If you want to keep seeing me just say it, Charles. Maybe it'll be even better because we won't have the tension of the work above, don't you think?" He too had lowered his voice, he had the same tone that he could easily remember what he used when addressing Robin or Lianna.

"I don't think I could do that, Kimi." He laughed. It wasn't a happy, genuine laugh. Far from it. It was hysterical, broken, forced, tainted by tears, sadness and bitter awareness.

Kimi understood. He nodded, but wanted confirmation. "If there's something you're trying to tell me that can help you break free or make you feel better, just tell me. Trust me, otherwise you'll regret it for a lifetime." He spurred him on. He was probably speaking from personal experience, probably because almost certainly the reason the boy was feeling so bad was related to their relationship and therefore he wanted to try to help in some way, probably both. From his tone it was impossible to tell, not even Kimi himself knew what was going around his head every now and then.

It took Charles some time to make it happen, but as soon as he did he was thrown three years earlier as a younger, more scared and less mature kid that Kimi had chosen of his own free will to protect him and to help him feel comfortable in the complicated and the cruel world of Formula 1. Perhaps because he had seen him incredibly frightened, perhaps because that young man had something that awakened his paternal instinct, or perhaps because that very boy reminded him of himself at that age: grumpy, reserved and bewildered but hiding everything behind a hard rind.

The fact is that he chose him, and now Charles was reliving that moment. A moment that he would have wanted to last forever, the only moment in which he had really felt protected and wanted by someone, someone who, why not, reminded him of his father. Him, who had lost his father too soon. Him, that so young he found himself without a male figure to guide him and that therefore he had to fend for himself, and perhaps for this reason he let himself be pampered and welcomed Kimi's gestures so well. Because he had, he _does_ really need someone who could help him on his path to becoming a man, and who better than Kimi could do it?

Maybe it was true, maybe it was he who pushed him away and closed in on himself as soon as he took his place in Ferrari, as soon as he realized that he didn't feel he deserved it as much as Kimi did. Him, who still bore the name of the last red emperor. Him, who had raced against anyone. Him, who probably deserved to win much more than what he had achieved today.

Him, the only man Charles ever wanted in his life to finally make it complete. The missing piece of the puzzle, the necessary part to finally feel at peace with himself and with the world around him.

No, he did not deserve the place he now occupied in Formula 1, much less someone as special and unique as Kimi was, and that was precisely why it would be better to leave everything as it was, without saying or revealing anything. Immaculate, as was the relationship that the two shared who, despite everything, were a more unique than rare couple.

After that Charles breathed a slow, thoughtful, pained sigh, filled with all his final awarenesses and realizations, and took three steps. Three, precise and identical steps towards the warrior who stood in front of him, and it was as soon as he found himself a few centimeters and looked him straight in the eyes that he felt all the emotions and sensations that a human being usually feels in the course of a lifetime in a moment. All of them, from the most pleasant to the most excruciating, in an instant, a blink of an eye, an infinite second. All submerged in the sea that was present in those two immense and ethereal blue eyes that had never been so close to Charles, so much that he felt as if it were possible to swim inside of them, to get lost in them.

The boy took down a non-existent amount of saliva. The two were so close that they could feel their breaths on them, and although Charles knew that his heart was beating so hard and burning with passion and love that Kimi could probably hear it, inside him perhaps he was hoping that even that of the man who was twice his age had lost some control. The truth is that he didn't know it either, he was totally absent, lost in looking and studying every single detail and nuance of Kimi's irises while the latter was also gazing at the sculptural face of the Monegasque. Charles would remain like this forever, for a lifetime. He wasn't thinking about anything, he was literally in a state of ethereal, almost cathartic grace, a catalepsy.

Kimi too was slowly getting lost in finding every perfect little imperfection in Charles's face. Although he was a few inches shorter, he kept his head straight and his eyes high.

Suddenly, just as Kimi was almost totally annihilated from the outside world, he felt warm, insecure hands touch and take his and bring him back to Earth.

He did not flinch at that contact, but he felt his heart avoid a beat, and this also resulted in his gaze, in which Charles could notice that his pupils dilated for a moment and he realized that now Kimi was visibly more alert and attentive.

The boy, even more insecure in his touch and with his heartbeat so accelerated that he had to compensate for it in his breath in order not to risk escalating into an anxiety attack or worse, now looked at the hands that had touched and soft as silk surrounded Kimi's with his.

They were smaller, but he liked how his, so insecure, delicate and gentle became in surrounding Kimi's so masculine, elegant and marble. They were like two halves of a broken heart that finally found the matching half, now Charles felt really complete, full.

He smiled, the more new actions he performed that concerned Kimi and the more he wanted to stay there forever, the more he felt a bitter taste in his mouth as soon as he remembered that all this would last for a little longer, that he would never have it again.

A tear escaped running down his right cheek, streaking it, but he didn't stop smiling for a moment. Indeed, the more he realized that that was not the only tear that escaped so easily the more his smile became sad and small, but he tried with all his heart to keep it.

Charles drew yet another sigh in his lungs which, however, died in his throat but which at least allowed him to catch his breath enough to widen his smile a little and in the meantime he brought Kimi's hands, still surrounded by his like a ready chrysalis to release something more beautiful, something improved, at the height of his chest.

He leaned them against it, and now Kimi could feel Charles's heart more alive than ever. He could perceive everything he was feeling from those simple pulsations, they transmitted so much.

The older one looked Charles in the eye again and noticed that he had already been looking at him for a few seconds now. The total surrender to sentiment and hope was visible through every single trait of the young man; in the eyes, in the mouth, in the hands, even in the posture was what really moved Kimi, probably for the first time since he first set eyes on the youngest. Yet he still managed to smile. Him, who had been through so much that the smile should have been the first thing he should have lost. Him, who no longer had anyone but his greatest passion and his few faithful friends. Him, who despite having lost everyone, had stood up as many times without ever stopping smiling, never stopping to believe in something to fight for, to live for.

Him, who had chosen Kimi among all.

He had never felt so special in his entire life.

"Reflected in your eyes I look beautiful too." Charles said.

**Author's Note:**

> work and chapters titles taken from Pleasantville by Nitro, an italian rapper


End file.
